I thought of this Appalachian hymn turned Christmas carol as I watched a short segment by filmmaker Tiffany Shlain entitled, “Let your mind wander,” which suggests that your brain makes connections when you “zone out” doing the simplest things such as the dishes, going for a walk, gardening and even taking a shower. She was strongly influenced by her ongoing conversations with Dr. Michael Rich at Harvard about media’s affect on youth.
I personally had a conversation with a dear friend who just started working for “my” real estate company. She mentioned how her daughter, Shannon – a fourth year student at UVa and one of my favorite people in the world, – has done a lot of thinking about technology and its impact on her generation.
One of Shannon’s keenest observations was when she recently took her grandfather on errands around our fair city. He knew everyone – by name, mind you – the cashiers, clerks and pharmacist – and actually talked to them! She thought that was so wonderful and quite the opposite from her own experience when she’s out and about when much like the rest of us, the only eye contact we’re making is with our hand held devices
To prepare for my columns, I have watched TED Talks, read articles and listened to the occasional podcast. I have yet to interview anyone either formally or informally until now. I felt strongly led to talk with Shannon and get her views “from the trenches.”
She told me about a fascinating podcast by founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, Sherry Turkle. The title of the podcast – originating from APM’s show, On Being – came directly from her research which included the distressing commentary from children while at a natural history exhibit that the robotic turtles were “alive enough.”
Turkle reflects on privacy being no longer relevant in our digital age and asks what are democracy as well as intimacy without it. She talks about how young people experience “phantom limbs” when apart from their phones and iPods. She offers that “discontent is the beginning of wisdom” and that solitude for children – and all of us for that matter – is nothing short of a lost art. She insists that “if you don’t teach your children how to be alone, they only know how to be lonely.” She also describes how to declare “e-mail bankruptcy.”
My taking you down this stream of consciousness was intentional, although it may leave some of you, well, wondering. It was meant to guide you to one of her most powerful ideas, which was summarized by the interviewer Krista Tippett. Tippett proposes that instead of technology shaping us, we can shape IT towards human purposes, even “honoring what we hold most dear” and that we can indeed live an “examined digital life.” What a concept!
Turkle herself holds no “nostalgia for an unplugged life” She thinks that our children must, in fact, live in their generation and that we don’t have to reject technology, just put it in its place.
What’s the answer? Should you take a sabbatical from e-mail, hiatus from Facebook or turn off screens one day/week? Absolutely, if you feel led. But what if we all “lived deliberately” and created “sacred spaces” as she suggests – on a DAILY basis? No devices at the dinner table – or in the car when picking up your child – or in line at the grocery store – or on a hike (oops, guilty as charged- I was taking pictures with my phone, promise!)
I not only love Turkle’s concept of “sacred spaces” but also her argument that we, the adults, are the problem. If we’re complaining about our children’s “addictions,” we better take a long, hard look at what we’re modeling for them.
My rule for TV when the kids were growing up was that it be “intentional and finite,” made far easier by the fact that we got three stations- on a clear day, that is. I guess I have to eat a serving of humble pie though and ask myself: am I living this way now?
Sure, I don’t watch TV or tweet, snap chat or use Instagram…yet. I nevertheless own a smart phone; text obsessively; respond regularly to the “roar of the internet;” and joined Facebook about a year and a half ago, albeit reluctantly. By the way, I happen to agree with a rapper who refers to it as a “pageantry of vanity.” Keeping up with the Joneses ain’t nothin’ compared to keeping up with your own…self…image.
In closing, I wonder. Perhaps it’s a matter of stewardship. We CAN be good stewards of this ubiquitous technology- with good boundaries. Maybe, just maybe, if we create “sacred spaces” each and every day, we can connect – and I mean really connect – with those we love as well as with the One who first loved us.
This will surely lead us out of the realm of being “alive enough” into that of being “truly alive,” both now and forevermore. And that, my friends, is exceedingly Good News.
– Caroline Watkins
